rodney@OXY.EDU (Rodney J. Hoffman) (02/21/90)
Summarized from an article by Thomas H. Maugh II in the 'Los Angeles Times'
(SEX, AMERICAN STYLE: TREND TO THE TRADITIONAL, Monday, Feb. 19, p. A1)
(The wording is entirely from the article. Comments in [brackets] are mine.
-- RH)
Tom W. Smith of the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Corp.
(NORC) headed one of the surveys reported at a New Orleans meeting of the
American Assn. for the Advancement of Science. NORC's General Social
Surveys are collected among about 1,500 people each year. This year, Smith
and James A. Davis added questions about sexual behavior. Although the
surveys are conducted by interviewers, the sex questions were answered on
paper by the repondents and placed in a sealed envelope to assure anonymity
and reporting accuracy.
According to the survey, the average American
* had 1.2 sexual partners in the past 12 months
* had sex an average of 57 times, or about once per week
(66 for men, 51 for women [?! seems to imply something....])
* had 7.15 sexual partners since age 18
(3.01 for the widowed, 5.72 for the currently married, 8.67
for the never married, 11.75 for the separated, 13.3 for the divorced)
* 22% had no sex at all in the past 12 months
(9.2% among the married, 20% to 26% among the never married,
separated and divorced, 85.9% among the widowed)
Since age 18
* 91% to 93% said they had been exclusively heterosexual
* 2% had been sexually inactive
* Between 5% and 6% said they been bisexual
* 1% had been exclusively homosexual
98.5% had been exclusively heterosexual in the past year, but the figure
includes homosexuals who were not sexually active. [???]
70% of married men had had at least one sexual partner in addition to their
spouse during their married lives. 35% of married women said the same.
6.8% had sexual activities in the preceding year that put them at high risk
of contracting AIDS. 2.4% had five or more partners in the past year, 3.2%
had sex with a complete stranger, and 0.7% of males had a homosexual encounter.
Freya L. Sonenstein of the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. reported on a
separate study on never-married adolescent males, conducted in 1979 and
repeated in 1988.
* At least one sexual encounter by age 15: 26.2% in 1979, 19.3% in 1988
* At least one sexual encounter by age 16: about 38% in 1979 and in 1988
* At least one sexual encounter by age 19: 65.7% in 1979, 75.5% in 1988
* Average number of sexual partners ever among the sexually active, never-
married male adolescent: 7.34 in 1979, 6.0 in 1988
* Using condoms: 19.9% in 1979, 54.3% in 1988